1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network system, network device, access restriction method for the network device, storage medium, and program.
2. Related Background Art
Recent years have seen a rapid growth of an Internet that is run by means of networks connected with network devices such as computers and printers. Consequently, various applications have been developed that use the Internet. In the future, it is expected that such Internet applications will grow rapidly. In particular, network devices, such as printers connected to networks, are provided with Web server capabilities to allow a commercially available Web browser to access the network devices and refer to the status, print jobs, etc. of the network devices. The initial values or the like of such network devices are set by device managers. The device managers should take measures to restrict access to Web servers in order to prevent the settings to be overwritten by users during the maintenance of the network devices.
However, although it is possible to restrict access to a Web server and issue an error code such as “403 Forbidden” or the like when a user who is forbidden access to the Web server tries to access it, the amount of information contained in the error code is too small to explain to the user clearly why the access to the Web server was restricted. Also, although it is possible to notify the user of the restriction on access to the Web server by changing an HTML file dynamically, the user's Web server displays the HTML file stored in its cache regardless of the HTML file's update date specified by the user. Consequently, the amount of display data cannot be reduced even if the HTML file was undated after the update date.